Our kids told us last night that their 6 year old cousin liked to say, "I like Trump. People that don't like Trump are going to have a bad life."
Our kids did not internalize this one whit - they know solidly that Trump is a terrible person, and they think their cousin may be a bit slow on the draw. And I know Jammies' sister is a covid minimizer. Still, I always instinctively spin that family as centrist as possible, and when I get concrete evidence like this that they aren't, it deeply rattles me.
My 80 year old mother broke her ankle last night, and I'm out of state. She's in the hospital, Dr. Oops is talking to her doctors, and everything's under control, but it's not a great situation.
Another ankle? Hope she gets feels better soon.
My sympathy to your mother. If you have to do something like that, the lesson I've learned is do it when the weather is cool. Wearing a pot when it's 32 degrees (Celsius, I can't remember how to do that other thing) is rubbish. Also, having a doctor in the family or close is a massive privilege.
All I have is a pharmacist and lawyers.
I also didn't realize that broken bones were protected by a "pot".
Oh, having a doctor sister to do the medical schmoozing is amazing. Without her I'd be much much more worried.
What do they call a plaster cast on a broken limb in the colonies, then? Here it's always referred to as a pot.
A plaster cast. I also didn't think it got to 32 degrees much there. That's not good.
8: It's a cast. Though hopefully not of thousands.
People that don't like Trump are going to have a bad life.
At least it's an ethos.
Still doing... worse than the before time but fucking awesome compared to a lot of people, I guess.
My brief hopes that moving to Vermont for the year might neatly solve all our problems didn't pan out. Or rather, too many drawbacks. So we've started to look into pods instead. It's crazy trying to figure out the logistics of it. Family A has one kid in kindergarten, family B has one kid in Pre-K 4, one in 3rd grade, and one in 5th grade, and one parent who works outside the home, family C has one kid in 3rd grade but they're high-risk so they don't want to be in a pod with family B, family D has a kid in kindergarten but they're still considering two other pods and moving... and of course it's stupid that we have to try to figure this stuff out to begin with.
Sorry, LB. Good luck.
having a doctor sister to do the medical schmoozing is amazing
I have a sister who has spent a career as an administrator in healthcare settings. Her management of my father's decline and demise was invaluable.
So sorry about your mother. I know the hospitals are (paradoxically) having a tough time getting patients in the pandemic. Maybe she will get better attention than otherwise.
Got to say, I've never heard a cast called a pot either. Either you'd say "cast" or you'd say you had your ankle (or whatever) in plaster.
I wouldn't really say plaster cast either; just cast. Plaster cast only if it was a cast in the sense of a replica.
Anyway, "People that don't like Trump are going to have a bad life" is basically the campaign promises for Trump 2020 but stated more clearly.
We had asked one of the staff at Steadfast's daycare to nanny while daycare was closed (4hrs on weekdays). Now his daycare is opening so she'll return to work there and she mentioned that her roommate is really struggling and would we want to hire her? (They're both lovely, early twenties, met through Teach for America and stayed friends.) I said that her roommate should get on the local Facebook moms' page and offer herself as a pod tutor.
I met her the next day to interview her ('do you swim? well enough that you can keep my kid from drowning?') and asked if she'd gotten any response to her post. Yep, three contacts within the first hour.
I felt like I might actually have concretely helped someone for once.
15: They're "going to go through some things."
Kids suck at veiled threats but are really good at open ones.
Apparently a dog has now died of Covid. The dog also had lymphoma, but it wasn't Herman-Cain old in dog years.
Good luck, LB.
Approximately all single-use plastic peel-away-lid containers here are called "pots." E.g. yoghurt pots. This so weirded me out when I first saw it that it has completely destroyed any memory of whatever word I used to use for that purpose.
Damn it, now we have a flat tire. 20 miles north of Pueblo, CO. Kids off wandering in the grass off the highway while Jammies puts on the donut.
I feel a flashback to my childhood trips. I can remember my dad doing that while mom had to keep four kids at peace.
22: my friend gave covid to her cat. Kitty was very sick for a week, and now still dislikes her old cat food and they had to find a new brand she would eat.
I once stopped on the interstate in Indiana to help a family with a blown tire. The dad went with me in the cab (I had a small pickup then) and he insisted his oldest son ride with us in the bed of the truck. I guess in case I was a serial killer?
Anyway, I didn't feel very confident about driving down the interstate with a teenager in the back, but maybe he was an adult? They only spoke Spanish and were all kind of short.
"plaster pot" + "broken arm": 134 Google results
"plaster cast" + "broker arm": 105,000
Approximately all single-use plastic peel-away-lid containers here are called "pots." E.g. yoghurt pots. This so weirded me out when I first saw it that it has completely destroyed any memory of whatever word I used to use for that purpose.
The large ones (like a quart) we would call a tub or maybe a jar if it's taller than it is wide. The small ones are just containers i guess.
Followup to 30: should be "broken arm" not "broker arm".
"plaster cast" + "broker arm" still gets me more than 134 though.
On the one hand, it's good that Maryland isn't in denial and was quick to admit "OK, we screwed up and reopened too fast. Time to close things down again."
On the other hand, it would have been nice if they'd handled reopening better in the first place.
About a week ago our much-maligned democrat mayor decided that in order to prevent the drunken transmission of Covid, bars should close at 10 pm. A few bar owners sued and got an injunction preventing this from going into effect. Now the republican governor stepped in and got the state liquor commission to forbid all alcohol sales after 10 pm.
Will this help? Or will Ohioans just start drinking earlier and faster?
I just saw a clip of Boris talking about Covid and his hair was combed. I'm assuming it's bad news but I didn't have the sound on.
37 It's a known fact that COVID isn't contagious before 10 PM.
In my experience, bars at 9:00 are very different than bars at 11:00, but I don't know exactly when the switch happens.
Basically, at 9:00 nobody grabs your shoulders to make a point or lets strangers share their fries.
I miss getting drunk in places that aren't my own house, but it feels petty to complain about it.
42 Same. There's one bar I like a lot (though not nearly as much as the Rugby Club, a true dive bar) that has a large outside terrace where I would feel safe to drink. OTOH I'd have to cab it there and back and that I don't feel safe about at all.
I keep thinking that there should be virtual meetups, and also keep thinking that I shouldn't be the one to host them, and consequently there are no virtual meetups (that I know of; maybe they get organized on FB). PERPLEXING.
I would totally be in to virtual meetups
Either that or I could go drinking in the park.
I could do a virtual meetup. I have a monthly call with some old friend that I was very skeptical about at the outset. It turns out it can work, but you need someone conscientious to direct traffic during the call. I'm the wrong person for that because my experience of group Zoom calls is either me pontificating, or me being pontificated at. But we've got someone who is very good at remote collaboration.
Hey Barry/anyone, are there Muslim responses to "Fear and Trembling" that would be appropriate to read today?
Still alive and well; hospitals are still full, but some reservists have joined our doctors at the most impacted local hospital, and the governor's looking at targeted outreach to Spanish speakers and other minorities, so we're mostly teetering on the brink, but not actively toppling over yet.
Our local fair provided some clarity; the contests that can be judged on appearance (like cake decorating) will be judged remotely, while events that require in person evaluation are canceled. (Our fair is in October, so it's good advance notice.)
And this is impressive candor (from before his campaign, but after he got into health policy) - he recounted in public that his surgical practice had made him up to $2.5m a year on just 5-6 surgeries a week, and talked about excessive hospital and doctor profits as part of the problem. That really warms me to him.
Our mayor just issued an order shutting down bars and indoor dining for four weeks, thank God. Hopefully that'll help curtail this second wave of infections.
Argh. Mr. 8 has been going to an all-outdoor camp thing that the city parks and rec department is running. They're all supposed to wear masks all day. Every day now when we pick him up it's drooped below his nose and he doesn't do anything about it until we point it out. I tell him this and that it's a problem and he insists he has the mask up every other moment when I'm not looking and I should trust him and not my eyes. So now I think (a) he's cheating on the mask (b) the staff isn't doing anything about it (c) he's more invested in winning the power struggle than doing the thing everyone is saying is mandatory for safety.
I think you should speak w the camp director. Don't try to battle w Mr. 8. It's not just him.
"Mr. 8" sounds like the title of an upcoming junior manger in whatever organization is trying to kill James Bond.
49 No idea really.
Up at 3 am for a walk with Pola at the nice urban park here. It's already 93 F and 73% humidity here so a short one. Maybe lunch and a movie later too.
I just had sort of authentic fish and chips. I was suffering from a grease deficiency.
Last night there was one of those wacky mishaps people in cross-cultural relationships have when Odile stopped home to walk the dog and called to ask me why the bottom of the stairs smelled like durian (which she likes and I don't) and I didn't figure out until she'd brought me home two hours later that what she was smelling was a gas knob turned on. So dealing with that as the power company checked and let us know we were cleared for habitation again was a fun way to spend 9-11 pm, especially after the dog ran out the door and around the neighborhood as I tried to air things out. The dog brought herself back just in time for the guy from the power company to arrive and it all worked out fine, but sheesh. I would like more boring times.
In other news, the older girls finished rock/art camp by zoom today and I'm so proud of them and hope they'll be inspired to keep experimenting. Odile and I emptied out her classmate's apartment and handed in the key, so that's basically through and we survived. Lee bought Selah a betta fish who seems unwell (as Lee texts me often in great detail) and this is working to make Selah want to go over there every night. But she's gone to Lee's now and that means I can nap now and maybe get reasonable rest.
That makes me want to never try durian.
We put up most of the hurricane shutters; will hopefully get the rest up in the morning before I leave for my flight home. Stupid hurricanes.
And back again, about 2.6 miles. It's really humid out there.
Pola has a final departure date, towards the end of September.
59.2. Rock art camp should totally be a thing. Kids could live in a cave for a week and learn techniques like blowing pigment over their hands to create silhouettes and drawing therianthropes with charcoal and ochre. I would go in a heartbeat.
63: Oh, that would be fantastic, wouldn't it??
Up at 3 am for a walk with Pola at the marina. JFC it's already 93F with 77% humidity...
That's why they want to move under the sea.
Near Arrakis did O-bama
A stately pleasure-dome decree
Out in the Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī
Under the sun-baked sea.
They had pleasure domes in Arrakis but it was not a domacracy.
Durian smells nothing like gas, c'mon.
Speaking of irresponsible speculation, doesn't banning Tik-Tok help Facebook, the social-media monopoly for people who like to "like" performative traditional authoritarianism? Or maybe Tik-Tok really is a Chinese spy tool?
71: When I type "Does Durian Smell Like" into Google, I get "gas" as the first autocomplete suggestion and "natural gas" as the third.
Science!
73 checks out https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5ae73830e4b04aa23f25a762
Durian science https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-does-the-durian-fruit-smell-so-terrible-149205532/?no-ist
We just watched my cousin's gay burlesque fundraiser with the kids.
The show is fantastic - this was a zoom best-of from years past - and it's all campy and artistic, but I'm still amused that our family just watched a bunch of simulated gay sex together, set to music.
It would have been really awkward otherwise.
I'm assuming everyone knows that Wilford Brimley died, but maybe I shouldn't.
We were trying to imagine if the kids tried to explain to their friends what they saw, and it got back to other parents, how it would just end up sounding like our kids were trying to describe a Shakira video. Like, it's so pleasantly out of the realm of what other parents would expect to hear that they'd surely just mash it into an existing mental category of entertainment and not think twice about it.
82 came here to post a NMM notice. He was 85 and had been 85 for the last forty years.
I'm feeling more dread about the start of the fall semester every day. My school stumbles along with their opening plan. The latest iteration is: faculty can teach in person or remotely if they want, students can be in person or remote if they want. Cohorts to keep student numbers in a classroom down. Simultaneous streaming. And I teach labs as well as lectures, so I'm supposed to teach three different ways to three or four different cohorts for each class I teach, while coming up with science lab exercises that work equally well for in person and remote cohorts. And the lab I teach in fall semester is one I have come to dread anyway because even in person, the workload just kills me (students doing extended independent projects in small groups and tons of guidance necessary to get them close to doing the projects at the level a college senior should be doing). So my response, even more than usual, is denial. This cannot be happening.
And then I read something like this model of what's necessary for colleges to open without fostering covid outbreaks (98% specific tests, every 2 days, that give results within hours and immediate isolation of students testing positive) and I sink deeper. So it seems like we're going to open face-to-face and then shut down (how soon exactly?).
So my plan has been "go along with the face to face opening, protect myself as much as possible, wait for the closing" but after reading/skimming the article above now I am wondering if I should opt for remote teaching. If I'm left to my own devices to stay safe, maybe I should prioritize that over in-person experience for students? So far I'm still opting for showing up in person.
Both of our kids, in high school, will be starting out face to face, a whole other can of worms.
72: yes
'I repeat, the track isn't finished."
They probably should have just given Dennis Hopper the money. This had to do more damage than $3.7 million.
In FML news, on the way back from the country's only off-license liquor store my car's cooling system completely crapped out. Was able to make it home but this also fucked up my plans to head to the opticians to get my new eyeglasses repaired as I'd drunkenly stumbled the other night and came down on them with my hand as they were lying on the dining room table. Maybe I should stop drinking so much but that's not going to happen during this pandemic.
Oh shit, my mechanic is on vacation in Lebanon.
I've heard it's very nice what with mountains and beaches.
It's beautiful. Unfortunately he's also not answering my messages, I heard this from the tow-truck driver he uses, so I don't know when he'll be coming back or who else I can bring it to. I may be looking at a short-term rental. Glad this happened after I stocked up on booze and have plenty of food on hand, also that it didn't happen tomorrow morning on the drive up north to the beach.
Maybe put hydroxychloroquine in the radiator. Fixes anything.
That statement is not evaluated by the FDA.
Maybe put hydroxychloroquine demon sperm in the radiator. Fixes anything.
That's just what gets marketed as "Prestone".
On my way up north to the beach with Pola...
Up at 3 am for a walk with Pola at the marina. Thank god it's only 34% humidity out.
And back, just a little over two miles
Oh crap, I forgot to do another update thread yesterday!
Is it better to wait until Friday? Or better to do one Wednesday and another on Friday? Or maybe do one on Wednesday and save the next for Saturday?
106. Yes.
Seriously though, why not throw one up on Friday?5